


Ashes of Hope

by Morgan (morgan32)



Series: Xena The Conqueror [1]
Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-01
Updated: 2009-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 05:16:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgan32/pseuds/Morgan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing Scenes from <i>Armageddon Now</i>: In the alternate universe where Xena rules, Iolaus learns the history of that realm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Callisto's Wake

The first grave was six months old. Weather had beaten the mound of earth down and the first blades of the grass that would one day shroud it were beginning to grow. The headstone bore a single word, the name of the warrior whose grave it was. Amphitryon. There was a new grave beside it. Freshly dug, the turned earth still smelled of loam. No headstone marked this grave, and only a single mourner was there, just one man to remember, to grieve.

In the days that followed, others would come. Much of what had happened here was clearly marked in the scene they would discover: signs of a battle, the burnt-out shell of a barn, and the grave of a woman. It would be called a tragedy. Some would speak sagely of the work of the gods – and, indeed, this was the work of a goddess — while others, malicious tongues of gossip for the moment stilled, would feel for the child, her son who would now have to grow up alone.

But she had another son. The child that now would never be born. And it was for that child, as much as for the woman, that the single mourner now wept.

Kneeling beside that lonely grave Iolaus wept as he hadn’t since he was a child. For Alcemene, who had been almost a mother to him. Alcemene, for whose sake he had travelled back in time, his wits and a simple hunter’s knife his only weapons against the immortal Callisto. Alcemene, who, despite all his efforts, was dead by Callisto’s hand. Alcemene, the mother of Hercules, who now would never be born. His tears were for Hercules, too, blood brother and closest friend. "The best man I know," as he had described him once. And his tears were for the world. Iolaus knew this much: Hercules had saved lives, changed lives, prevented some terrible injustices. His existence had made a difference in the world, and the world would be a poorer place without him.

Iolaus’ life, too, was irrevocably changed by the death of his friend.

"I’m sorry I failed you, Alcemene." The words, offered in a broken voice, were all he had left. "Now the world will never know Hercules. I’ve lost the best friend…" The tears choked off whatever else he might have said.

He could feel the weight of the hunting knife, shoved through his belt. It was a reminder of his failure. Gods, he had been so close… Iolaus stood up, looking down at the grave. He felt as if he had buried his heart there, alongside Alcemene and her unborn son. Only one thing remained for him.

"This will not go unanswered," he promised, casting the words to the uncaring sky. And, as grief turned to rage, "I will find you, Callisto!" The valley witnessed his vow of vengeance, the last of his words echoing through the air.

Already, though the grieving hero didn’t know it yet, the world was turning to darkness.

***

_Hercules is gone._

No matter how many times he repeated the words in his mind, it seemed unreal. It _couldn't_ be real.

But it was real. Callisto had reduced that barn to a pile of ashes and splinters, and with it Alcemene, her unborn son, and all Iolaus' hope. It was too late for regrets. He couldn't go back and try again. Ares had given him one chance: the ability to follow Callisto wherever in time she might go. That he could do. He had his hind-blood now, a crimson smear on the blade of his knife. It was all he had left…the determination to make Callisto pay.

Pulled through time in pursuit of his immortal prey, Iolaus found himself in Cirra. Cirra…Callisto's childhood home. Xena's destruction of Cirra had made Callisto into the evil creature she was. As the goddess's plan became clear to him, Iolaus began to form a plan of his own. No one could replace Hercules. No one. There was, however, one person with the ability to do many of the same things. Someone Iolaus knew as a hero, someone who could fight for justice and help those in need.

Unfortunately in this time — the past, as Iolaus knew it — Xena was a ruthless warlord, one of the chosen of Ares. The goodness that Iolaus knew existed in her heart was well hidden. Hercules had changed her.

Iolaus _knew_ he was no Hercules. His own history with Xena didn't exactly inspire him with confidence in his ability to reach her. But he had to try. It was worth the risk. Xena might kill him. She would certainly try. Then again, after his failure to save Alcemene, what did he have left to lose?

Hercules had helped Xena to reform, but he had not done it alone. Xena had begun to change on her own, when she saved a baby from the ruins of a village destroyed by Darphus. This was the knowledge that gave Iolaus hope. Maybe — just maybe — he could find that core of goodness inside the Warrior Princess.

Iolaus failed. Again.

Nothing he said had been able to reach her. Iolaus had forgotten — gods, how could _he_ of all men have forgotten — just what a monster Xena had been. She had laughed at his protestations of friendship, dismissed as the ravings of a madman his talk of her destiny. If not for the timely arrival of Darphus, Iolaus would be dead. One more nick on her blood-drenched sword.

Taking advantage of the all-too-brief distraction provided by Xena's lieutenant, Iolaus fled Xena's pavilion. Somehow he escaped from her encampment. The scene replayed in his mind, over and over. He had almost reached her at the end. Solan. Maybe she would believe him. Maybe she would remember his words. It was all he could hope for.

Iolaus' hand returned to the knife at his waist. Soon, Xena's army would be attacking Cirra. It was the attack Callisto had come to prevent, and he had to be there.

There was someone he had to kill.


	2. Xena

_"I know about your son. Solan."_

_"Nobody knows about Solan. **Who are you?**"_

_"I'm from the future. And I know your destiny, Xena."_

No. It wasn't possible. The man was mad. _Your son. Solan._ He had known. Impossible.

Xena turned her chakram over in her hands, her eyes moving over its familiar lines, running a thumb along its razor-sharp edge.

_"Nice move. Who taught you that?"_

_"You did."_

To judge by the way he had fought her it could be true. He anticipated every move she made. Xena knew she wasn't slipping, hadn't been so slow he could have seen what she would do. And then he had just disappeared. She had been distracted by Darphus for less than a second, and in that time he was gone.

_"I'm your friend."_

_"You're destined for great things."_

Well, she had always known that. She was Xena, Warrior Princess. Her name would be written large in history with letters of blood.

_"…As a hero."_

Yeah, right. It had been possible, once. She had tried to do good, to protect her family in Amphipolis. That Xena had been killed by Caesar. The new Xena born that day was going to conquer the world. And have some laughs doing it.

_"Stop willing. Stop desiring. Stop hating."_

Xena's beautiful face twisted into a snarl and she banished the voice. Back to her past where it belonged. Replacing the chakram on its hook at her waist she stood. She replaced her sword in its sheath across her back and marched out of her pavilion. She signalled, and her horse was brought to her. She mounted, and rode out to meet her army. She was only half-listening as Darphus gave his report on the attack. It had gone well, just like all the others. A fire had broken out, more people than usual had died, but that was all.

_"Your Lieutenant. Darphus. He's going to betray you."_

Xena shook her head. Darphus wanted to lead this army himself: she knew that. She found his ambition useful. But he didn't have it in him. He certainly didn't have the guts to challenge her.

"What about the women and children?" she asked suddenly.

"Most of 'em got out," Darphus reported. There was someone hiding in the barn. The fire…"

"Too bad." Xena shrugged and began to turn away. The next village was —

_"Because of what's going to happen here in Cirra, a little girl is going to become a monster-goddess."_

Abruptly, she turned back. "Darphus, tell me about the survivors."

"A few old men. A younger man with a kid."

"This kid. A boy?"

"A girl."

_"A little girl is going to become…"_ A goddess. A rival. At the very least, a threat to her. And he had known about her son.

Xena drew her sword. "Which way did they go?"

"North."

"Call the men." Xena put spurs to her horse. She knew how to deal with rivals. Kill 'em all.

***

Arcadia had fallen. There was so little resistance it was pathetic. Almost not worth the trouble. The Warrior Princess was beginning to earn her title. She now ruled Arcadia, Tripolis, Lerna. Not quite ready to take on Sparta, she would turn east instead, into Argolis. But first, there was a small peninsula she had somehow missed as she stormed through the region.

She discussed the best route of attack with her lieutenant, looking over the maps as they talked.

"I say we go here," he insisted, stabbing at the map with one meaty finger.

Xena frowned. "The western villages?"

"They're lightly defended. We'll wipe 'em off the map. It'll be an easy victory."

Xena didn't like his attitude. Darphus was becoming rebellious, questioning her judgement in front of the men, showing no respect for her in private. Still, he was a useful man. She would hate to have to kill him. "Easy victories make for weak soldiers," she disagreed.

He shrugged. "Long as the men get what they want…"

Oh, she knew what he wanted, all right. It was hard enough for a woman to lead an army of men without encouraging that sort of behaviour in battle. She was a warrior, not a butcher. Not a monster.

"I'll go north with my scouts," Xena decided abruptly. "I'll see for myself what the northern defences are like. And _when I return_, we attack." With a wave of her hand she dismissed Darphus. As he left the tent, he looked back briefly, his lip curled in a contemptuous smile.

Oh, yes. Darphus was going to be a problem.

***

Xena strode through the still-smouldering village. All around her was death. Even through the darkness she could see that the men had gone wild here: women and children lay dead beside the men, bodies looted. Some of them died trapped in burning houses. It didn't take much to guess the cause: Darphus.

She could see him gloating over his work. It wasn't just the destruction: she had specifically ordered him not to attack until she returned. Angrily she rounded on him. "What have you done?" she demanded.

"A message," he told her proudly. "To all those who defy us."

"You killed women and children?" He knew her standing orders on that subject. The army of Xena _never_ killed women and children. _Except after Cirra…_ She shook her head, dismissing the stray thought. There had been reasons for that.

Darphus was still speaking. "If this doesn't strike fear into the hearts of the northern villages, nothing will," he boasted.

Xena, her hand on her sword, moved very close to him. "You are a butcher," she hissed. "Your disobedience will not go unpunished." She started to draw her sword.

At that moment, they both heard the cry. Xena turned away from Darphus. The distraction would help her get her anger under control. She marched into the ruins of one of the houses and found the cradle. It was a baby, a boy. She lifted the child out of his cradle. So someone had survived Daphus' butchery.

Xena heard someone say, "I thought I'd killed them both." She looked down, seeing the bloody corpse of a woman in the corner of the room.

"Kill it!" Darphus ordered.

The man approached, a dagger in his hand. Xena held the baby in one arm, raised the other to ward off the man. "Stop! You kill this baby, you die next."

She looked past him and met Darphus' eyes. Her lieutenant seemed pleased by her actions.

_"He's going to betray you. Make you run a gauntlet."_

Xena set her jaw grimly. Staring straight at Darphus, she said, "Contrary to what some people might think, _I_ still lead this army." She walked up to him, pushing him out through the doorway. The door hung crazily from a single hinge. Outside the other men had begun to gather. They should all witness this.

Darphus was _not_ going to betray Xena. She would make certain of that now: humiliate him in front of his men.

She signalled to one man she was certain was loyal to her, and handed the baby to him. Then she drew her sword and turned to Darphus. "Can't you do anything right? You slaughter an entire village and it's a baby that escapes you! You idiot." She stepped toward him as he backed away, allowing the bloodlust to shine in her eyes. "If you want to send a message, you don't kill 'em all. Who's left to tell people what we did here? You let a few of 'em live, the old women, the brats, and they'll tell the world what happens to any village that stands in our way. Who's a baby going to tell?"

"Then why don't we kill the brat, Xena?" he taunted. "No use to us, is it?"

The men must not see her as weak. They must never guess that when she looked at that baby she saw the son she'd abandoned.

"You're missing the point, Darphus. Whether the baby dies or not, _I_ decide. Not you." She hit him: a swift backhanded punch that sent him sprawling to the ground. He reached for a dagger; she lifted her chakram threateningly. "I wouldn't do that," she warned.

Xena glanced over her shoulder to the man holding the baby. "Kill it," she said, her tone emotionless.

"_No!_ You can't!"

The cry of protest took Xena by surprise. Who would dare to question her orders? She spun to face the speaker. It was one of her prisoners: the self-proclaimed salesman who had persuaded her to spare his life a few villages back. She'd let him live because he seemed amusing, and really, he did have some interesting ideas. ("Be like a tax-collector," he had said. "Tell people you're doing it for their own good!") Unfortunately, amusing or not, she couldn't permit insubordination in front of her men. Certainly not from this clown.

"I said, kill it." She repeated her order and turned away so she wouldn't see it done. She grabbed the clown by the front of his clothing. "I assume you were joking," she said, her voice low and dangerous.

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean… it's a baby!" he babbled, terrified.

"And that gives you the right to question my orders?"

"It's a baby. It can't harm you. What purpose is there in killing it? You know, this is just the sort of thing I've been trying to — "

She slapped him. He shut up fast. She kicked him in the knee and he collapsed to the ground, squealing like a pig with the pain.

Xena reached down and grabbed his beard, jerking his head up and forcing him to look at her. She pitched her voice to carry. "Now you listen to me, eunuch. I don't care if it's a baby, a chicken or a hydra. If I order something killed, you can assume it's better off dead. Understand me?"

He wouldn't look at her. He mumbled something.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"I'm not a eunuch," he repeated. The men nearby who heard him sniggered.

Xena had had enough of this man. "That can be corrected," she informed him coldly. "You don't really amuse me any more." She turned to Darphus, now back on his feet. She spat out a single order: "See to it."

The salesman stared at her, for a moment silenced by shock and disbelief. Then he began to babble, begging for mercy. Xena strode away, ignoring his pleas. The damn fool should have known better than to criticise her in front of her men. The screams of the salesman-clown echoed through the ruined village.

Above those terrible screams, audible only to her, Xena heard the laughter of the God of War. "Oh, nicely done, Xena," he congratulated her. "Nicely done."


	3. Iolaus

What could have happened here? Iolaus' mind shied away from the obvious conclusion, but couldn't come up with any other. Three dead bodies in the barn. Two of them knifed, the other burned so badly it could only be the work of Callisto. But her own parents? Callisto's younger self, just a girl, not evil, wholly mortal, sat unresponsively in the hay while the fire blazed around her. For a second, no longer than that, Iolaus considered leaving her there, allowing Callisto's own flames to burn out this infection of evil. No, he couldn't do it. However much he wanted Callisto dead, this poor child wasn't responsible. Iolaus gathered her into his arms and carried her away from the flames.

"Callisto!" The voice came from his left, just as he emerged into the daylight. Iolaus turned to see a man, a villager, hurrying toward him. "What are you doing with my niece?" the man demanded. "Where are her parents?"

Gently, Iolaus set the girl on her feet in front of her uncle. He answered the last question first. "They're dead."

The man stared at him in shock. Iolaus, who had suffered losses of his own recently, returned the look with sympathy. "Well," the man said eventually, taking the girl into his arms, "I'll take care of her,"

Callisto accepted her uncle's embrace, but was unresponsive, just staring straight ahead. It was quite frightening to Iolaus, who knew, who had seen, exactly what this orphaned child could turn into. "You know," he said to her compassionately, "if you cry, it might help."

"No," the girl replied, her voice like ice. "I will never cry."

Iolaus suppressed a shudder, hearing in her tone the monster-goddess he now knew she would become. _Oh, by the gods, I should kill her now._ But he couldn't. Instead, he turned away from that frightening scene, drawing the bloodied hunting knife from his belt once more. "OK, Callisto. Where are you?"

As if the words were a signal, a wave of disorientation struck, and Iolaus was pulled through time again.

***

Corinth. Iolaus recognised the familiar pillars of the central square, and had no doubt as to where he was. But _when_ was he? He glanced around him, still somewhat disoriented from his journey through time. There were soldiers everywhere, in polished armour with blue and black livery, and a dragon blazon he didn't recognise at all. The symbol of Corinth's king had been the golden fleece, ever since Jason brought it back from Colchis.

A lame beggar crawled out from the shadow of the wall, grabbing the arm of a passing soldier. "Remember me to the Conqueror," the beggar whined. "I fought with you when we took Sparta." The soldier grunted, dropping a handful of coins. The beggar gathered them up and crawled back to the wall.

At first, Iolaus barely noticed the coin he had missed. His mind was reeling from the beggar's words: _"…we took Sparta."_ Sparta hadn't been conquered in living memory! Was he somehow in the future? Then he bent down and picked up the coin the beggar had left behind. It looked like an ordinary one-dinar piece, but… Iolaus blinked, and looked again. The head stamped on the coin was familiar. Horribly familiar.

"Xena the Conqueror?" he said aloud, wonderingly.

Another passing soldier shoved Iolaus roughly out of his way. Iolaus bit back a temptation to yell at the man. He moved out of the soldiers' way and found himself staring up at a cross. A cross with a dying man tied to it. He turned away from that awful sight, only to be confronted by a worse one. Through the open gates of the city, Iolaus saw a landscape that had once been very familiar to him. As home. Now it was changed. Row upon row of crosses littered that landscape; the dying, and the dead in various states of decay.

Xena the Conqueror.

As the full implications of Alcemene's death came crashing in on him, Iolaus found two words rising to his lips. "Oh, no." Inadequate words…nothing could possibly encompass all this. _"I can't imagine a world without Hercules,"_ he had told Alcemene. Well, now he didn't have to imagine it. He was seeing it. And this was as bad as it could possibly be.

"What in Tartarus are you doing?"

Iolaus spun round, automatically prepared to fight, and found himself looking into the face of a young man. He couldn't be more than twenty, but his face was badly scarred down the left side, and he wore an eye-patch over his left eye. No way was this kid a threat, and Iolaus relaxed a little.

"Come on, you idiot," the man urged. Let's get out of the square before someone else recognises you." He grabbed a handful of Iolaus' vest and tugged on it.

Somewhat bemused, Iolaus followed.

"I dunno how you escaped from Darphus, but I'm sure glad to see you." The young man kept talking as he led Iolaus down a narrow alley. "The others will be, too. We all thought you were dead…"

"Uh, I think you might have mistaken me…" Iolaus started to say.

But his "captor" wasn't listening. He opened a tiny door and ducked through, dragging Iolaus after him. "How did you do it, Orestes?" he asked, as he closed the door behind them.

Too many shocks in what had to be the longest day of his life. Iolaus barely registered the name the young man had used. He gathered, however, that he had been mistaken for someone else, someone who was dead. "Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not…"

A loud crack. A sudden, sharp pain. And the world disappeared.

***

"Herc?" Iolaus raised a hand to his aching head and groaned. "Hercules, I had the worst dream…"

He heard a flint strike and saw a flame appear. In the light of the single candle he saw a woman's face bending close to the flame. The next moment he realised she was someone he knew.

"Gabrielle? Gods, what happened to me? Where's Herc?"

She did not reply at once. She brought the candle closer to him, studying his face in its light. "You look like him. I can see why Pascilus was confused."

"Huh? Who? Gabrielle, what's going on?" Later, Iolaus would wonder what kindly god or goddess had kept him from asking after Xena.

"How do you know my name?" she asked, her eyes narrow with mistrust.

That look of suspicion was hard to take from Gabrielle. "How do I…? Gabrielle, we know each other. If this is some sort of joke, it's not funny. Where's Hercules?"

Gabrielle picked up a chair and set it beside the rough bed where Iolaus lay. Sitting down, she said firmly, "I don't know who you are, but I'm not that easily fooled. Outside this room are ten armed men just waiting for me to scream, or call to them, so don't get any ideas about escape. Pascilus shouldn't have brought you here. But he did, and now we have to deal with it. You have one hour. If you can convince me you're on our side, you can leave. Otherwise, I'm afraid you won't leave this room alive." She looked down at her hands in her lap. "I'm not happy with that, but there's nothing I can do about it. I convinced them to give you this much of a chance, at least." She took a breath, meeting Iolaus' eyes again. "You didn't exactly make a good start here, so let me tell you: you can forget about pretending you know me, and forget trying to convince me you're Orestes. I know he's dead, I saw his body."

"Orestes." Iolaus repeated the name, stunned. _Oh, gods, let this be a nightmare._ "I guess you're not going to believe me, but this is the truth. My name is Iolaus. I have a cousin called Orestes, I look a lot like him. I suppose your…friend?…got us confused." He took a deep breath and decided to go for it. "But I do know you, at least I think I do. You're Gabrielle, you come from Potedeia and you're a bard."

"Who's this Hercules you keep talking about?"

"Who's Hercules?" Iolaus repeated, disbelieving. Then the terrible suspicion began to dawn. That maybe it hadn't been a dream after all. "Does…does the name Xena mean anything to you?"

Gabrielle gave him a scornful look. "Everyone in Corinth knows the Conqueror. Her name stands for hatred and war and death."

"That's what I was afraid of." Iolaus turned his head away, feeling tears sting his eyes again. Hercules was dead. Worse, Hercules had never even been born.

"What is it? Are you in pain?" Gabrielle's voice, grim with hate a moment before, became soft with sympathy.

_Pain. Yes, I'm in pain. The single most important thing I've ever had to do and I failed. Oh, gods, Herc, forgive me._

"No, no pain. I'm fine."

"Are you sure? That was quite a blow you took."

"I'm fine," Iolaus lied again.

Gabrielle's face became stern. "In that case, I think it's time you gave me some answers. Who are you? Why were you in the square with a bloody knife? Who is Hercules? And why were you afraid I knew the Conqueror's name?"

_Oh, gods, my knife!_ Iolaus started up suddenly. "Gabrielle, my dagger. Where is it? Please, it's more important than you can imagine."

Gabrielle gestured, and Iolaus saw the knife on the table behind the candle, the crimson smear of hind-blood still clearly visible. "We're not thieves, Iolaus. Now, please answer my question."

Iolaus closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them and looked at her. She was almost the same Gabrielle he remembered: same strawberry-blonde hair, same innocent eyes, same pure heart. "Alcemene is dead, Hercules is dead. I might as well be dead too. So I'll tell you the truth, Gabrielle, even though I'm sure you won't believe me.

"I do know you, Gabrielle. Where I come from we're good friends. You saved my life when we first met: I was wounded and you stayed with me, even though we were strangers…" He saw her frowning. "Yeah, I know, I'm not making even a little bit of sense. You see, I know Xena, too…but not as the Conqueror. Where I come from she's a hero. And so are you."

"You're out of your mind."

"Honestly, Gabrielle, I wish I was. You'll have to humour me a bit if I'm going to explain. A couple of days ago, for me, the world was a totally different place." Slowly, getting it all in the wrong order, sure he was making no sense at all, Iolaus told the story. The Sovereign. Hercules trapped between the worlds. Ares. Callisto going back in time to kill Alcemene. Ares sending him after her. The Sovereign's pendant of hind-blood (well, it was Xena's originally, but now Callisto had it…she'd killed Strife just to see if it would really work). Alcemene dying, history changed because Hercules had never been there to help Xena reform.

Gabrielle didn't interrupt once. When he had finished his impossible story, she said quietly, "I believe you."

"You do?"

"You obviously believe every word. I mean, you must be mad, but I believe you _think_ you're telling me the truth."

"Gabrielle, I am. Gods, I wish I wasn't." He felt the tears behind his eyes again. "Would you help me, Gabrielle? I just don't know this world. Will you tell me what's changed?"

"What's changed," she repeated with an amused smile. "I have the same problem as you, Iolaus. I don't know the world you're talking about."

"Oh. I guess that's true. Well…could you tell me about Xena? I know she was a warlord a few years ago, but how did she become the Conqueror?"

Gabrielle shook her head. "It's all in the name, Iolaus. The Conqueror. She burned her way across Greece."


	4. Gabrielle

"You called me a bard. I'm not, but I can tell this story. I've heard that in the early years Xena wasn't so bad. They say she was careful not to kill women and children on her conquests, and that if she was in the mood, she would even show mercy. Now the crosses hold the bodies of any who oppose her, men or women, their families, too; mercy means a life of slavery…and not a long life. I think people believe those tales because they want to: romanticising the past."

Iolaus shook his head. "The Xena I know never killed women or children."

"What about Cirra?" Gabrielle demanded. Iolaus didn't reply. "People still talk in hushed voices about the massacre of Cirra. Xena's army had already conquered the village. It burned to the ground, nothing left but ashes and a handful of survivors. And Xena hunted down every one of them. Men, women, children, even babies. All of them were killed. No one knows what the village had done to bring down the wrath of Xena: she didn't leave one to tell the tale."

Iolaus knew. He closed his eyes, but it didn't shut out the images conjured by Gabrielle's quiet voice. _A little girl is going to become a monster-goddess. You can change all that._ What had he done?

Gabrielle was still speaking. "Xena conquered all of Achaea and Arcadia. As her army swept through the Parthian Peninsula, something else happened. Something changed her. Again, no one knows what. There are stories about her lieutenant trying to revolt, but that can't be true. He's still at her side. Whatever it was, when her army reached Parthis…"

"Parthis?" Iolaus repeated weakly. That was the town Hercules had saved, fighting side by side with Xena after Darphus betrayed her and took over her army. He didn't want to hear any more. He had an awful feeling he knew what was coming, and he didn't want to hear it.

Gabrielle's tale went on relentlessly. She spoke of the sack of Parthis: no living soul had escaped that doomed town. After that it seemed nothing could stop Xena. Her growing army conquered the Peloponnesus from Arcadia to Corinth, after which she established her headquarters in Corinth and set out to take the rest of Greece. Greece's greatest warriors had already died in her earlier wars, and Athens fell to her quickly. Xena razed that once great city to the ground, destroying everything, leaving no rival to her Corinth. Then she moved north.

The following year, an army from abroad known only as "the Horde" attacked Greece. Xena's army, then by far the largest in the country, had led the defence of Greece. Many villages and towns had willingly become part of her empire in order to gain her protection. She had taken all of Thessaly in that way. The Horde was defeated easily by her combined forces. For a time, at least, Xena's name was celebrated in song.

Gabrielle then spoke of her own village, Potedeia. Very few of them had believed the stories they had heard; tales of whole towns slaughtered, of families sold into slavery, of the wives and children of men who dared to rebel meeting their deaths upon the Conqueror's crosses…the tales painted a picture too horrifying, too inhuman to be true. So, foolishly, they had stayed in Potedeia, knowing her army was coming, clinging to the desperate hope that they might buy mercy, that when the Conqueror had passed them by they might resume their lives.

"I remember seeing her," Gabrielle told Iolaus. "I wasn't in Potedeia when the attack came…I can't even remember why any more. I was almost at my village when I heard the sounds of the attack, and I hid in the trees. There was smoke coming from the village and I knew it was burning. Then I saw the horses, coming toward me. So many of them, mounted men with bloody swords. And Xena. She was like a demon from Tartarus, laughing, her armour covered with blood, and there was…there was…someone's head, hanging from her saddle. I…"

"Gabrielle, stop. You don't have to tell me these things." Iolaus could see she was almost in tears. There was no way these were easy memories for her.

Gabrielle shook her head, blinking back the tears that threatened. She looked at Iolaus, saw the compassion and understanding in his eyes. "Let me finish," she asked. He nodded, helplessly. Gabrielle resumed her tale, more slowly now. "I couldn't return to Potedeia. I heard later that the ones who weren't killed were taken as slaves, but I've never been able to find out…about my family. I travelled west, to Thessaly. I was hoping to take ship for Rome, begin a new life." She looked down with a cynical grin. "I guess I was lucky I didn't do that, huh?" Iolaus frowned, not sure what she meant, but Gabrielle didn't see his expression.

"That's about all I can tell you. There are still a few rebels, men and women who believe we have a right to a better life than this."

"And you're one of them, right?" Iolaus guessed. It fitted what he knew of Gabrielle.

Slowly, reluctantly, she nodded. "Anyone who plots against the Conqueror, anyone who even speaks against her dies. If they can prove it, you die on the cross. If they can't you just disappear. So you understand, we can't risk…" Her voice trailed off as she looked at him.

Iolaus understood. He knew his life was in real danger, if not from Gabrielle, then from her friends. But he hardly cared. She might claim not to be a bard, but Gabrielle could still create pictures with her words far more vivid than most. The picture she painted for him was a world without Hercules. A world Iolaus felt responsible for creating. And Cirra… Had his unthinking words to Xena changed that history? He had wanted revenge on Callisto, but this was too much, too high a price to pay. How much of what had happened was directly his fault? Not just because he had failed to save Alcemene, but because he had, in his damned foolish pride, thought he could change Xena as Hercules had?

"Yesterday…years ago, by your reckoning, I met Xena." Iolaus wasn't sure why he was telling Gabrielle, but once he'd begun he couldn't turn back. "It was just before her army attacked Cirra. I…I tried to talk to her, but I failed. I'm not Hercules."

"It's strange," Gabrielle said thoughtfully. "You keep saying that name. I know I've never heard it before today, but somehow…I feel as if I should know what you mean."

"You should. We all should. And it's my fault you don't know. There has to be something else I could have done… Now it's too late. I can't believe Xena is the way you've described. I mean, I should know…I do know what she's capable of. But the Xena I know…"

"Is good. You said that before."

"More than good. She's a hero. She helped to free Prometheus when he was chained by Hera. She stopped the Centaurs and Amazons going to war. She saved all of Greece when the Persians invaded. And you…" But he couldn't say it. Just couldn't.

"The right person could change her, Gabrielle. I'm sure of it."

Gabrielle shook her head. "If you really think that…"

"She wasn't always evil," Iolaus insisted. "She was a normal girl once, just like you were. She was made what she is."

Despite herself, Gabrielle found herself persuaded by his words. He seemed so sure. With reluctant fascination, she asked, "How? How was she 'made'?"

"Loss," Iolaus said. "A warlord invaded her home village and her brother was killed. She became obsessed with protecting the family she had left. That's how it started. Then she was betrayed by a man…by Caesar. A friend of hers was killed. That loss made her chose the path of war. Something else happened to her in the Kingdom of Chin. I'm not sure what. After that she returned to Greece intent on conquest. All Xena's life, each loss has made her lose a bit more of her humanity." Iolaus sighed heavily. "Hercules…he saw the good inside her before it was too late. Maybe it's too late now, I don't know. All I know is that there was good in Xena. She could achieve great things."

***

"I'm glad I met you. Gabrielle. This world can't be all bad with you still in it."

She gave him a sideways glance and laughed. "You are _so_ not like your cousin. Tell me, do you write poetry, too?" She shifted the weight of the basket on her arm and led him on.

Gabrielle's friends had accepted — at her insistence — his story that he was the cousin of their dead compatriot. It had been clear to Iolaus that one or two of them were still suspicious of him, but they all looked to Gabrielle for leadership, and she had accepted him. Even knowing Gabrielle as he did, Iolaus was surprised by what he had seen in her so far. She had been tempered by the loss of her home and family, but it hadn't twisted her, as grief and hate could so easily twist people. Rather, she had grown up rapidly, found an inner core of unbreakable determination: a desire for a better world.

Gabrielle had not told Iolaus what had brought her to Corinth. Whatever it was, there she had found other, like-minded men and women. Slowly, they were beginning to organise. Their rebellion was one of peace: they wrote pamphlets and made speeches, they encouraged small acts of rebellion, they tried to make people think about the world they lived in. It was a dangerous strategy.

True to her trusting nature, Gabrielle, whatever she might privately believe, treated Iolaus as if his "stranger in a strange world" story was true, explaining details to him that no one else would need explained. She had asked him to accompany her to the market, telling him he'd find the trip informative. She had been right.

Iolaus tore his gaze away from the line of crosses on the horizon and moved on through the market, following Gabrielle and two of her friends, Rosoin and Pascilus. The market was crowded, but the level of noise was subdued, conversations of the people brief and all business. Everywhere there were soldiers, all of them carrying that dragon blazon: the Conqueror's guard. Iolaus examined the goods on sale and listened to the prices, at first simply to have somewhere to look, since he didn't have a dinar to his name. After a few stalls, it began to catch his attention. The prices were…not high, but strange. Foreign goods seemed unusually cheap. Even the poorest cast iron was prohibitively expensive, good steel not even on sale. No wonder his hunting knife had attracted attention. He would have expected animal products like leather and meat to be expensive; not only these but even the most common food staples were high-priced…while craft goods, baskets, cloth, carpentry, seemed ridiculously cheap. How could people live like this?

Gabrielle shook her head sadly when he asked about it. "They can't live like this," she said grimly.

Rosoin added, her voice low, "The Conqueror's campaign against the Amazons increased the grain taxes across the Peloponnesus. Now the people can barely afford to plant for next year, let alone survive the winter." Rosoin was a serious-faced, and very pretty woman. In other circumstances, Iolaus would have been interested in much more than her words. In this world, however, such thoughts seemed…out of place.

Raised voices a short distance away attracted the attention of all four of them. A blue-liveried soldier was arguing with a female stall-holder. Gabrielle took a deep breath. There was a grim look on her face. Before she could move, Pascilus grabbed her arm.

"Gabrielle, don't," he said warningly.

"I can't just stand by and do nothing," she hissed at him, wrenching her arm from her friend's grasp. "Pascilus, it's my risk to take."

Iolaus watched the brief exchange. The thought flashed across his mind that Gabrielle was just like Hercules: she saw someone in trouble and wanted to help. He stayed at her side as she moved toward the woman's stall.

The soldier had been amusing himself examining the woman's goods — she was a carver, selling beautifully crafted bowls and jars, other wooden goods. Something had caught the soldier's eye and he tried to take it. The woman protested, demanding payment. This had caused the disturbance Gabrielle had seen.

Careless of possible danger, Gabrielle stalked up to the soldier. She caught his mailed fist as he began to bring it down on the table: the blow would have broken many of the woman's pieces.

"Stop that!" Gabrielle insisted, her voice a little too loud. "These goods represent months of work. She deserves to be paid for what you take."

The soldier grabbed Gabrielle's hand in his. He turned to her, his eyes taking in her red-blonde hair, her green eyes flashing with anger. He laughed coarsely. "Gonna make me a better offer, sweetheart?" he asked her. His accompanying gesture left little doubt as to what he meant.

Gabrielle spat in his face. The soldier still held her hand firmly in his. He pulled her closer to him and raised his other hand to strike her. Iolaus was not going to let that happen. He didn't think: he just acted. His hand closed firmly over the soldier's wrist, forcing him to release Gabrielle. As she moved away, Iolaus kicked the soldier behind his knees. He fell, and Iolaus followed that with a hard punch.

Only when the soldier lay unconscious at his feet did he stop to consider that might not have been the wisest move.

The altercation had attracted even more attention. There were four other soldiers approaching. Iolaus felt a cool hand on his arm and spun round to see Pascilus. "Iolaus, you have to get away from here," the young man urged. "Now."

"Not until Gabrielle is safe," he insisted.

"He's right, Iolaus," Rosoin put in. "If Darphus sees your face…well, there are worse deaths than the cross."

Gabrielle had raised her voice and was speaking to the gathering crowd. "How can you just stand by and watch this happen? Even the Conqueror's laws give you rights! Her soldiers cannot be allowed to flout them." Her words were impassioned, her voice carried. "Have you no dignity? Stand up for your right to live!"

A soldier's hand closed on her arm. Gabrielle struggled to get away from him, but in vain. A second soldier appeared on her other side.

Iolaus stepped forward, intending to go to her aid. Both Rosoin and Pascilus held him back. "Don't do it, Iolaus," Pascilus hissed.

"I can't just allow — "

"You've got to." Rosoin's hand on his wrist was a grip of iron. "Listen to me. If Gabrielle has the sense to keep her mouth shut she has a chance. We can try to save her. She knows that." As Iolaus stopped struggling she added, "Now, let's get away from here. It won't help Gabrielle to have us all arrested."

As the Conqueror's soldiers dragged her from the market, Gabrielle struggled to look back. She almost dislocated her shoulders trying, but she finally managed it. For a brief moment, she saw her friends. Saw Iolaus watching her. Met his blue-grey eyes with what she hoped was reassurance in hers. As she lost sight of him, the last thing she saw was the agony of helplessness in his face.


	5. Turning Point

Xena, the Conqueror, the Warrior Queen of Greece, the Butcher of Athens, Scourge of the Horde, the Chosen of Ares, God of War and Ruler of the Known World, was bored.

The Chamber of State was opulent to the point of extravagance. Weapons on display lined the walls: the Conqueror was, after all, a warrior first and foremost. Below them were the dozens of silk-woven tapestries that were the latest tribute from the Eastern Provinces of her Empire. Furniture was expertly carved wood encrusted with gold. Her own throne was made of black marble. On either side of the Conqueror knelt two slaves, one boy, one girl, ready to respond to her slightest gesture. In the open space before her, the Conqueror was watching a pair of slaves battle to the death. They had been chained together: the right wrist and ankle of one to the left wrist and ankle of the other, and armed with maces. One would die. The other had been promised freedom if their battle pleased the Conqueror.

The Conqueror was bored. She didn't want to watch slaves fight, she wanted a bit of action herself. It had been months since she'd last been in a saddle, riding into battle with a warcry and a bloody sword raised high… There were no more enemies left to fight. She ruled the world. Xena could think back with satisfaction on her many conquests. Her march across Greece. The enslavement of the Amazon nation. The conquest of Rome… the look on Caesar's face when she had sent him to the cross like a common criminal was a memory that could still make her smile. Burning her way across China… the utter destruction of the Kingdom of Ming had been her final revenge on Ming Tsu. His son she had allowed to live: a broken, pathetic man in the ruins of his once-great kingdom.

After all that glorious war, Xena had ended up as ruler of a world of peace. She remembered the crazy prophet who came to her so many years before, babbling of her great destiny. A stray thought passed through her mind: if only she knew where he was so she could reward him. His warning about Darphus' planned rebellion had enabled her to turn the traitorous pig into her most loyal commander. What had that strange man told her? _"There's good inside you, Xena. You're destined for great things. As a hero." _And he had been right. She had been a hero to Greece when she'd driven off the Horde. And she had brought peace to the world. Amazing.

The battle before her came to an end, but Xena hardly noticed. A gesture little more than a twitch of her finger signalled her servants to clear up and Xena rose from her throne. At once, a slave was at her side, but Xena ignored the child. Casually, she strode down the centre of the hall, her glacier blue eyes scanning the faces, the nervously averted eyes that lined her path.

As she passed a window, the sound of coarse laughter drifted up. Xena glanced down into the courtyard below. She saw three of her soldiers with a prisoner. She saw a flash of red-gold hair. Then they disappeared from her view. Xena raised a hand. At once Daunus was at her side.

"How may I serve you, Conqueror?"

"Find out what's happening down there," she ordered.

He bowed and left her.

***

Gabrielle had never been more frightened. Writing speeches by candlelight while others guarded doors; discussing the problems of the world in hushed voices; sharing fantasies about destroying the Conqueror's power; these were one thing. Since Orestes' horrible death, Gabrielle had known the time for action was approaching, but she had hoped to choose it carefully. When the moment came, she had known. Known she could no longer stand by, filing away details of abuses so she could speak of them in closed meetings. It was time to speak out.

Iolaus — whoever he really was — had given Gabrielle hope for the first time in years. He spoke so passionately of a better world, a world of heroes, a world of freedom. Gabrielle had lain awake for hours that night, remembering his words, trying to imagine the world he claimed to come from. _"Where I come from Xena is a hero. And so are you."_ Words, just words. Casually spoken, but with such sorrow in his eyes. He couldn't possibly know how deeply she was affected by all the things he didn't say. All the things she thought he was holding back. He might be mad. In fact it seemed likely. It made no difference.

Gabrielle felt ashamed. How long had she waited to change the world? How long would she hide in dark corners, dreaming, longing, fantasising, but doing _nothing_? No longer, she decided.

The Conqueror's dungeon stank of human waste and decay. It was cold and damp. Gabrielle stood in the middle of her tiny cell because she couldn't bring herself to sit down in whatever coated the floor. This was _not_ what she had hoped to achieve though only the gods knew what she had expected. She knew all too well what lay ahead now. Days, perhaps weeks of confinement. No one knew what might happen to her in those weeks. Finally, she would be interrogated. Gabrielle thought back over the things she had said in the market. She hadn't actually spoken against the Conqueror specifically. She had been speaking against the soldiers. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could escape with her life.

After an hour the stench stopped making her sick. Each breath still tasted dreadful, the reek of waste still sharp enough to sting her nose. After three hours it was almost bearable. What wasn't bearable was the sound. A constant low moaning came from somewhere nearby. There was a steady drip, drip of what Gabrielle fervently hoped was water. Occasionally a scream would be heard, frequently followed by laughter. Other sounds: thuds and clicks and clangs and other things indescribable painted a horrifying picture in Gabrielle's vivid imagination. There was no window in her cell, and the only light came from the tiny barred opening in the cell door. She could judge the passing hours only by guesswork. Based on her hunger, she had been there five hours when the guards came to take her from the cell.

***

The most surprising thing about the Conqueror was her beauty. A woman capable of the deeds of Xena should be ugly: red eyes and fangs dripping blood. The woman before Gabrielle's frightened eyes seemed almost human. She wore a long robe of pale embroidered silk, cut in the eastern style that had become popular since the kingdoms of Chin had been added to the empire. Her rich black hair shone about her shoulders. Only the Conqueror's eyes gave away her true character. Those startling blue eyes were cold…almost dead.

It was a very confused Gabrielle who was brought into the Conqueror's presence. When she had been taken from her cell she had anticipated pain, perhaps interrogation, perhaps as amusement for the guards. Perhaps even death. She remembered Orestes' face — so like that of Iolaus — and tried not to show her fear. Instead of pain, she had found comfort. In that sweet-smelling room, one of the Conqueror's many slaves had bathed and perfumed her body, brushed her hair until it shone, dressed her in a simple, but clean, gown. Gabrielle had been so grateful to get rid of the stink of the dungeon that at first she hadn't considered the implications of such treatment. When she did, she wanted to run.

The guards came for her again, and she went with them because she had no other choice. From her memory she brought out Iolaus' words: _"…Xena is a hero. And so are you."_ repeating them over and over in her mind so there would be no room for any other thoughts, no room for her to remember the stories she heard about the abuses of the Conqueror's prisoners, no chance for her to panic. And then she found herself standing just a short distance away from the Conqueror.

They were not, of course, alone. The Conqueror's slaves were always present, and there was another man, a man with the bearing of a soldier but not in armour or livery, standing silently on the Conqueror's left. Gabrielle could hardly breathe.

"I expect you're wondering why you're here," Xena said.

Into Gabrielle's mind flashed the memory of the destruction of Potedeia. The Conqueror riding down on them, some poor innocent's severed head hanging from her saddle… _Damned_ if she was going to show fear or respect to this butcher! Gabrielle shrugged, and said, "I was born." She looked boldly into the Conqueror's dead eyes.

The ghost of a smile touched the Conqueror's lips. The prisoner's insolence was refreshing. "I understand," Xena continued, "that you're unhappy with my rule. That you spoke against me in the market today." Xena signalled and the slave at her side raised a dish of sweetmeats.

Gabrielle's eyes followed the Conqueror's hand as she brought one to her mouth. Gods, she was hungry. "That's a lie," she insisted, more vehemently that she had intended.

A dark eyebrow arched in surprise. "A lie? Then why are you here? Did my men arrest you unfairly?" Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"I did speak in the marketplace today," Gabrielle admitted, hesitantly. "But it wasn't against you I spoke…" Warming to her subject, Gabrielle's voice became stronger, her words more bold. Reckless it may have been, foolish it certainly was. She had little to lose, though. Gabrielle told the Conqueror what had happened to lead to her arrest. She was careful not to mention Iolaus' part in it: no sense in implicating others in what was certainly sedition, and what the Conqueror might chose to consider treason. Gabrielle spoke of the hard life of such artisans: so many of them were starving. She pointed out that such scenes were common. She accused the Conqueror of being unable to control her men.

At that last she saw the Conqueror glance quickly at the other man in the room. Gabrielle shut up quickly, horrified that her mouth had run away with her like that.

"I have heard similar tales," the man said, his voice neutral, giving away nothing.

"Bring Darphus here," the Conqueror ordered. Her man left. She looked at Gabrielle for a long moment then gestured to a chair. "Sit," she said.

Trembling, Gabrielle obeyed. She couldn't have stood much longer in any case. She was so scared her legs wouldn't hold her. Darphus. Next to Xena's there was no name so feared. No one told the stories of that man, yet somehow everyone knew them. Everyone knew that he was a monster, a power-hungry butcher who delighted in cruelty. He and Xena were a good match.

Sinking into the chair with some relief, Gabrielle waited. Darphus was insultingly slow to respond to the Conqueror's summons. Neither woman spoke while they waited.

_"She's a hero."_

_"The right person could change her, Gabrielle."_

_"She wasn't always evil. She was made what she is."_

Gabrielle sat in terrified silence as the Commander of the Conqueror's armies entered the room. She listened as the Conqueror repeated Gabrielle's version of the events in the market. "You told me none of this, Darphus. If the girl's story is true, I want the situation dealt with."

Darphus gave Gabrielle a look filled with hatred and contempt. "She is lying," he stated flatly. "She was caught inciting the people to revolt and she's trying to save her own skin. Did she tell you one of her accomplices attacked that soldier? That the man was wounded?"

Xena glanced quickly at Gabrielle. Gabrielle bowed her head.

"Accomplices, huh?" the Conqueror repeated. "Just how badly was my soldier hurt?"

Darphus explained that the man had been knocked unconscious.

"Then I want you to find that man and kick him out of my army. If that's the best he can do against an unarmed civilian, he has no place here." The Conqueror stood, walking toward her Commander and confronting him. "And then you will investigate what happened. If there were others, why did your men manage to arrest only one? I don't tolerate incompetence."

The Commander bowed stiffly and turned to leave.

"And Darphus…"

He turned back.

"The next time I hear a story like this, the soldiers involved will be crucified. At once. Do you understand me?"

"Conqueror," Darphus said slowly, "I personally guarantee you will never hear such a story again." He looked again at Gabrielle: a dangerous promise in his eyes. "Should I take her back to the cells, Conqueror?" he offered.

Gabrielle held her breath.

"No. You have more important things to do."

When Darphus was gone, Gabrielle could finally relax a little.

"I want you to remember this day," the Conqueror told her. "I want you to remember that I can be fair."

Gabrielle stared up at her, disbelieving. Was the woman serious? Gods!

The Conqueror was frowning as their eyes met. "What's going on in that busy mind of yours?" she askd speculatively. "Go on. Please, speak freely."

_You asked for it,_ Gabrielle thought, shrugging inwardly. "It won't matter what the truth is, Darphus will claim I lie. I can't prove anything I've said, and people will be too scared to witness. In a few weeks you'll have forgotten this, and the soldiers will still be stealing from the market."

The Conqueror's eyes opened wide at this bold criticism, but she said nothing. Gabrielle took all her courage into her hands and went on: "Why am I here, anyway? Talking to you? Are you bored with your empire, Conqueror? With no campaigns left to plan, no enemies left to slaughter. It must be terrible for you."

She was a little too close to the edge, there. "You make me sound like a monster," Xena said, her voice dangerous.

"Aren't you, though? The name of Xena is feared throughout the known world. You're a legend. But you're not loved."

A short, harsh bark of laughter. "What good is 'love'?"

_You'll never know, will you?_ "Tell me, Xena, is your mother proud of you?" Gabrielle saw the Conqueror's eyes flash with anger and realised she might have gone too far. But she'd said too much to stop now. She reminded the Conqueror of the cities she had sacked: Athens, Rome, Ming. Too many others to name them all. "You must have been a child, once. Did you have friends then? Brothers? What happened to you, Xena? What loss or betrayal made you into the monster you are?"

***

_"Tell me, Xena, is your mother proud of you?"_

The Conqueror gave an angry snarl and resumed her pacing, like a confined animal, across the floor of her bedchamber. No, Cyrene hadn't been proud. She blamed Xena for everything. Xena's army had taken Amphipolis along with the rest of Thrace. The look in Cyrene's eyes when they had brought her before the Conqueror would live in her memory forever.

_"You make me sound like a monster."_

_"Aren't you?"_

With a scream of rage, Xena hurled her chakram across the room, shattering a large jar. How dared that slip of a girl challenge her! Her: Xena the Conqueror, the greatest warrior in Greece, the ruler of the known world. How dared she?

Why should the memory of her soft voice rob the Conqueror of sleep?

Because she was right. Because somehow she had seen the truth in Xena's heart.

_"What loss or betrayal…"_

Burning with anger, the Conqueror pulled a robe around her shoulders and marched out of the bedchamber. At night the Palace was quiet, guards on doors and in corridors carefully not noticing the Conqueror's progress through the halls. For some reason, she was still carrying the chakram. She made her way to the dungeon beneath the Palace and told the guard that she wanted to see the prisoner.

It took the man some time to figure out which prisoner she meant. Xena was not going to put up with the stench in those cells, so she waited in an ante-room while he went down to the cells and returned with the red-haired girl.

Face to face with Gabrielle, the Conqueror found herself at a loss for words. She didn't know why she was there. Didn't know what she wanted, or what to say. The two women stared at each other for the longest time. Xena: angry, confused. Gabrielle: tired, frightened, desperate.

_"The right person could change her, Gabrielle, I'm sure of it."_

_"The Xena I know…she's a hero…And you…"_

There was something Iolaus hadn't said. He had looked at her with such misery in his eyes. What had he held back?

_"This world can't be all bad with you still in it."_

Hesitantly, Gabrielle spoke. "I think I understand," she said quietly. "I know what loss and grief can do to people." She had seen it, many times. So many of those who tried to join her tiny resistance cell were those whose hatred had made them obsessive, who wanted to see the Conqueror dead, regardless of the cost. Gabrielle, her own grief no less than theirs, had another priority. She wanted a better world. Iolaus had made her realise that the Conqueror might be useful to that cause. Alive.

_"There was good in Xena."_

"…But how does your pain justify the things you have done?" Gabrielle asked her.

It was a mistake. Gabrielle had gone too far. She felt the blow to her head as an explosion of pain. She never saw it coming. Gabrielle found herself thrown against the rough stone wall. She felt the skin near her eye tear as her face hit the stone. Blood welled up, dark red. She sank to her knees. Pain exploded again as the Conqueror's foot connected with her side.

Xena leaned down and grasped the front of Gabrielle's dress in one strong hand. She lifted the girl's body off the ground and lifted her chakram, pressing its sharp edge against that pale throat.

Gabrielle's eyes bored into hers. "That's right. Kill me," she choked out. "Prove you're the greatest warrior by slaughtering a helpless woman."

Xena released her hold on Gabrielle's clothing and she fell heavily to the ground. She closed her eyes, waiting for the death-blow, wondering if she would even feel it. When she opened her eyes the Conqueror was gone.

Gabrielle rolled her aching body over. Holding the wall for support, she slowly clambered to her feet. What had just happened? Gabrielle realised that somehow, something she had said had affected the Conqueror. What she didn't know was how deeply, or in what way. She lifted a hand to the side of her face. It came away sticky with blood.

_I just don't understand…_ Gabrielle thought in despair. Silently, she shifted onto her knees. More fervently than ever before in her life, Gabrielle prayed to Athena for wisdom.

Back in the privacy of her bedchamber, Xena, the Conqueror, buried her face in her hands and gave in to grief and despair.

_"How does your pain justify the things you have done?"_

_"Prove you're the greatest warrior by slaughtering a helpless woman."_

Three years before…the nameless village Darphus burned…a baby, the sole survivor among the ruins…the baby she killed in order to humiliate her lieutenant…Her turning point. The single chance the Fates had offered for Xena to decide her destiny. For the sake of pride and (admit it, Xena) fear, she had killed an innocent child.

Not the first. She remembered Cirra, and the hunt she had led for the survivors of that burned town. She remembered Chin. She remembered Parthis. She remembered Rome.

Xena wept. How had this girl, this frightened rebel, seen so clearly into her heart? Why now? Why couldn't she have met Gabrielle years ago? _It's too late. I've killed so many men. I'll never wash the blood from my hands._

A brief sparkle of red, and a dark-clad figure appeared before her. "Why would you want to?" Ares asked her.


	6. Last Hope

#### Two Days Later...

Iolaus was standing beneath the cross. The man it held was dead, now, his suffering over. A new cross waited on the ground before the Conqueror's throne. It awaited its victim.

The sound of the great gong resounded through the square, announcing the Conqueror's arrival to all. Slowly, majestically, the procession emerged from the Palace. Soldiers of the Conqueror's personal guard. Her entourage of slaves. And finally, Xena, the Conqueror herself. The great fans held by her slaves parted in perfect unison to reveal her beautiful face to her subjects.

Iolaus couldn't tear his gaze away from her. He saw in the Conqueror so much of the Xena he knew: she was calm and in control of herself, her hair held back, her beautiful face framed with gold. This was not the Warrior Princess who had fought him at Cirra. Neither could he see the Xena who had seduced and used him all those years ago. This serenity was something new. Iolaus wondered what had caused it.

Then he saw Darphus. Darphus, the bloodthirsty butcher who had thrown Xena out of her own army, here dressed in the red livery of the Conqueror's elite guard, standing at her right hand. Moving slowly, trying not to attract attention, Iolaus moved forward through the crowd. Pascilus' warning that he shouldn't permit Darphus to see him was forgotten.

"Bring out the prisoner!" Darphus bellowed. Somewhere to Iolaus' right, a door in the wall opened and two soldiers dragged out their prisoner.

It was Gabrielle. She was dragged between the two men, not struggling. To Iolaus it looked as though she hardly had the strength to walk. Her head was bowed, her red-gold hair shining in the mocking sunlight. The soldiers threw her roughly to the ground at the foot of the steps that led up to the Conqueror's throne.

"What is her crime?" Xena asked, her voice pitched to be heard by the waiting crowd.

Gabrielle looked up from the ground. Firmly she said, "I spoke." The words carried.

Iolaus couldn't take his eyes from her. Gabrielle. Beautiful, brave, reckless. He couldn't bear to watch, yet he had no choice. His body wouldn't obey him; it kept him there, forced him to witness.

"She incited the people against you," Darphus announced, more for the benefit of the crowd than the Conqueror. "She encouraged them to revolt."

Xena's icy gaze flickered to Darphus briefly and back to Gabrielle, who was struggling against fatigue and pain, trying to stand. No one helped her. Xena rose from her throne and descended the steps. She took her time, her eyes never leaving Gabrielle. By the time the Conqueror reached her, Gabrielle was standing. In a gesture curiously gentle, Xena touched Gabrielle's face, pushing back her hair.

The action revealed to Iolaus a deep cut in Gabrielle's face, near her eye. But it was the look in Xena's eyes that really caught Iolaus' attention. Was it possible that Xena somehow recognised Gabrielle? The two women were so close in the world Iolaus knew, their friendship so strong he couldn't imagine anything tearing them apart. In this world that had forgotten Hercules, was it possible that Xena still knew Gabrielle? The Conqueror looked at Gabrielle's wound, and for just an instant, something like shame flickered across her face.

"Are you guilty?" Xena asked her prisoner.

Gabrielle, her eyes bright with anger and defiance, jerked her face away from the Conqueror's touch. "I gave voice to the people," she announced. "The fearful. The starving. The ones who disappeared in the night never to be seen again."

The listening crowd was silent. Suddenly too silent: Gabrielle's words touched close to treason; no one wanted to be noticed by the soldiers scanning the crowd. No one wanted to be seen, because being noticed might be construed as support for the woman's words. The tension in the square was palpable. Iolaus, like the others, stayed frozen. Everything in him wanted to shout support for Gabrielle, or to help her, to take her away from this. He couldn't. Even had Hercules been at his side, the odds were far too stacked against him. The only way he could support Gabrielle was to allow her to speak. And to hope that, when it was over, there would be enough of her left for him to save.

Gabrielle turned her back on Xena and rounded on the crowd. "Have you no dignity?" she demanded of them. "No rights? A right to live, to be free from harm!" She saw Iolaus standing there and for an instant their eyes met. Gabrielle's expression softened when she saw him; for an all-too-brief moment he read gratitude in her eyes.

Her passionate entreaty to the crowd had no effect.

"I guess," Xena said with a cynical smile, "they don't hear your voice."

Fearlessly, Gabrielle hurled her challenge to the Conqueror. "I'm not the only one. You can't break our spirit."

It was Iolaus who felt fear. He remembered Xena — the old Xena — and knew exactly how she would respond to this. He wanted to shout, _Oh, gods, Gabrielle, don't_ and finally he understood why her friends had tried to prevent her speaking in the market. Now it was too late.

Xena took a single step closer to Gabrielle. "The cure for spirit," she said silkily, "is fear. You'll serve as an example." She signalled to the guards with a tilt of her head. They held Gabrielle fast between them. "Put her on the cross," Xena ordered.

Iolaus was watching Xena. Regardless of what she had become in this world, Iolaus _knew_ Xena, knew her intimately, in fact. Something was wrong with this whole exchange. That glance at Darphus: he had said something unexpected. And Iolaus realised: Xena wanted to spare Gabrielle. "Are you guilty?" she had asked her. What would she have done if Gabrielle had said no? Confused, Iolaus turned his gaze to Gabrielle, futilely struggling against the soldiers tying her to the cross.

Xena, partway up the steps on her way back to the throne, turned back. Almost as an afterthought, her voice completely without emotion, she said, "Break her legs."

Another soldier approached with a large long-handled mallet. As Gabrielle's eyes followed Xena's back up those steps, she felt fear for the first time. The soldier raised the mallet, swung it in a high arc and brought it down.

Gabrielle's scream echoed through the square.

***

Iolaus stared down at the knife in his hands. Smeared with the red of hind-blood, with it he had planned to commit a murder. Callisto. He wanted to blame her. She killed Alcemene. No one else. Callisto did it. And in killing Alcemene, she had wiped out the existence of Hercules and so created this world.

_That's not quite true, is it?_ an insidious voice insisted. How far had Iolaus influenced the creation of this world? He had told Xena about the consequences of her army burning Cirra. After that, her army had searched out the survivors of that village and wiped them out, according to Gabrielle.

Gabrielle. _Oh, gods, Gabrielle._ There should have been something he could have done, some way he could have saved her. He owed her that much, by the gods: she saved his worthless life. Twice, in fact. When Prometheus was captured and more recently, when she interceded with her friends for him. How _could_ he have just stood there and watched…

They hadn't expected that small act of mercy. _"Break her legs."_ The Conqueror's mercy had sealed Gabrielle's fate. Apparently Gabrielle's small band of rebels had done it before, saved a few of Xena's victims from the crosses. _We wait until after dark. The soldiers don't care, they don't watch. If a body goes missing, they think it's families claiming their dead for burial. So if you're careful, if you're willing to take the risk, we can save her._

Alcemene. Hercules. Gabrielle. All gone.

_"This world can't be all bad with you still in it."_

What's left? Xena the Conqueror. A hunters knife covered with hind-blood. A pointless vow of vengeance.

"And I thought," Iolaus said aloud, "that the Sovereign's world was bad" At least in that world there had been something he could _do_. At least someone had wanted to work against the tyrant. In spite of his despair, Iolaus found himself smiling. The God of Love. Ares.

Ares! Ares sent him back. Ares could do it again. Maybe he could fix all this.

Iolaus got to his feet. He shoved the hunting knife back into his belt. With a new purpose in mind, he began to walk. In a world where Xena ruled, Ares would have a temple in every city. All Iolaus had to do was find one.

It was a thin hope. It was his last hope.


End file.
